Lost in the Desert

The Wreckage of Consolidated B-24D Liberator, Lady Be Good

The Libyan desert is a harsh, unforgiving environment. Dry and sparse, the temperatures can soar to over 130° during the day and drop to temperatures hovering around freezing during the night. It is a place inimical to human existence. The exigencies of war have as little pity for life as does the desert.

Seventy-seven years ago today the B-24D Liberator Lady Be Good lifted off from Soluch Field in Libya to bomb targets in the vicinity of Naples, Italy. A round trip of over 1,400 miles, well within the capabilities of the aircraft.

The plane, which was one of the last to depart, took off at 1415 hours. It joined the formation of eleven other Liberators and continued on to Naples. A sandstorm caused eight of the B-24s to return to Soluch, leaving four aircraft to continue the operation. When the Lady Be Good arrived over Naples at 1950 hours at 24,900 feet, poor visibility was obscuring the primary target. Two of the B-24s attacked the secondary target on the return trip while the other two aircraft dumped their bombs into the Mediterranean to reduce weight and save fuel.

Lady Be Good was separated from the other three aircraft and flew on to Soluch alone. It was the crews' first mission.

At 0012 hours the pilot, Lt. William Hatton, radioed to say his automatic direction finder was not working and asked for a location of base. The crew apparently overflew Soluch, failing to see the flares fired to attract their attention. They continued southward over North Africa, deeper into the Sahara Desert, for the next two hours.

At 0200 hours, as fuel became critically low, the crew decided to bail out. The abandoned Lady Be Good flew a further 16 miles before it crash-landed into the Calanscio Sand Sea.

Largely because it was believed that the aircraft had probably crashed at sea, a subsequent search and rescue mission from Soluch failed to find any trace of the aircraft or its crew. The disappearance of the Lady Be Good became a mystery. (Source)

For fifteen years...

Location of the Lady Be Good crash site in relation to Soluch Field

The crew of Lady Be Good.
Left to right: 1Lt. W.J. Hatton, pilot; 2Lt. R.F. Toner, copilot; 2Lt. D.P. Hays, navigator; 2Lt. J.S. Woravka, bombardier;
TSgt. H.J. Ripslinger, engineer; TSgt. R.E. LaMotte, radio operator; SSgt. G.E. Shelly, gunner;
SSgt. V.L. Moore, gunner; and SSgt. S.E. Adams, gunner.
(U.S. Air Force photo)

An animated dramatization of the events leading to the loss of the Lady Be Good.

In November of 1958 aircraft wreckage was sighted by an oil exploration team from British Petroleum. They reported the find to Wheelus Air Base. No attempt was made by the Air Force to investigate the crash site because there were no records of any American aircraft going down in that area.

On February 27, 1959, British oil surveyor Gordon Bowerman and British geologists Donald Sheridan and John Martin spotted the wreckage near 26°42′45.7″N 24°01′27″E, 440 miles southeast of Soluch, following up the first sighting from the air on May 16, 1958, by the crew of a Silver City Airways Dakota, piloted by Captain Allan Frost, and another on June 15. A recovery team made initial trips from Wheelus Air Base to the crash site on May 26, 1959.

Although the plane was broken into two pieces, it was immaculately preserved, with functioning machine guns, a working radio, and some supplies of food and water. A thermos of tea was found to be drinkable. No human remains were found on board the aircraft nor in the surrounding crash site, nor were parachutes found.

Most of the evidence from the wreckage indicated that the men had bailed out. However, the log book of the navigator, 2nd Lt D.P. "Deep" Hays, which was still on board, made no mention of the aircraft's movements after the crew commenced their return leg from Naples. (Source)

After fifteen years the wreckage of the Lady Be Good had been discovered, an aircraft which had been assumed to have gone down in the Mediterranean, found far to the south of the field from which the crew had departed on their first mission.

And their last.

What of those crewman? What were the fates of 1Lt Hatton, 2Lt Toner, 2Lt Hays,  2Lt Woravka, TSgt Ripslinger, TSgt LaMotte, SSgt Shelly, SSgt Moore, and SSgt Adams? There were no bodies in the wreckage. Where was the crew?

Nearly two years after the discovery of the aircraft, the Army went looking.

In February 1960, the United States Army conducted a formal search of the area for the remains of the crew. Five bodies – those of 1Lt Hatton, 2Lt Toner, 2Lt Hays, TSgt LaMotte and SSgt Adams – were found on February 11. The team concluded that other bodies were likely buried beneath sand dunes after finding evidence that at least three of the surviving crew members had continued walking northward.

With the news that five bodies had been recovered, the US Air Force and US Army started an expanded search called Operation Climax in May 1960. The joint operation used a USAF C-130 cargo plane and two Army Bell H-13 helicopters. However, it was a British Petroleum exploration crew that found the remains of SSgt Shelley, on May 12, 1960, 24 miles northwest of the recovered five bodies. A US Army helicopter found the body of TSgt Ripslinger on May 17, 1960, located 26 miles northwest of Shelley's body, over 200 miles from the crash site, but still 99 miles from Soluch Field. These two bodies were the only ones found during Operation Climax. Another British Petroleum oil exploration crew discovered the remains of 2nd Lt Woravka in August 1960. His body was then recovered by the US Air Force.

The remains of SSgt Vernon L. Moore, have never been "officially" found. However, his remains may have been recovered and buried by a desert patrol of the British Army in 1953. As they were unaware that any Allied air crews were missing in the area, the human remains were recorded but then buried without further investigation. (Source)

We'll never know the exact circumstances surrounding the loss of Lady Be Good and her crew. All we know for sure is that nine men went out on their very first combat mission, and never returned.

Lady Be Good

Rest in peace gentlemen.

The B-24D

First model produced on a large scale; ordered from 1940 to 1942, as a B-24C with better engines (R-1830-43 supercharged engines). The D model was initially equipped with a remotely operated and periscopically sighted Bendix belly turret, as the first examples of the B-17E Flying Fortress and some early models of the B-25 Mitchell medium bomber had used, but this proved unsatisfactory in service and was discontinued after the 287th aircraft. Production aircraft reverted to the earlier manually operated "tunnel" mounting with a single .50 caliber (12.7 mm) machine. The tunnel gun was eventually replaced by the Sperry ball turret, which had also been adopted by the later B-17E Fortresses, but made retractable for the Liberator when not in use as the ventral area of its fuselage was very close to the ground on landing. In late B-24Ds, "cheek" guns mounted on either side of the forward nose, just behind the framed "greenhouse" nose glazing were added. (Total: 2,696: 2,381 Consolidated, San Diego; 305 Consolidated, Fort Worth; 10 Douglas, Tulsa, Oklahoma). (Source)

B-24D Aircraft Serial Number 41-24301 (Lady Be Good, 376th BG, 514 BS) crew got lost in first bombing mission over Italy April 4, 1943 and overflew their home base at Soluch, Libya.  Flew 300 miles into Sahara, ran out of gas and bellied in.  Crew bailed out when they were down to two engines due to fuel starvation. Crew attempted to walk out and perished in the desert.  Aircraft found in desert in 1958.  Crew remains and a survival diary found in early 1960s.  Most of the plane still remained in desert as found.  Remains of plane were salvaged and put on display in Tobruk, Libya. (Source)

Cutaway drawing of the B-24D Liberator
Note the lack of a ball turret.
(Source)

The fact that there were only nine crewmembers aboard the Lady Be Good leads me to believe that the ship did not have a ball turret, as shown in the dramatization above, but rather had the Bendix Power Driven Turret as shown above. This was remotely operated by the radio operator. The following drawing shows this crewman as the "assistant radio operator." I've also seen references to the radio operator acting on occasion as one of the waist gunners.

Crew positions in the B-24D Liberator
(Source)

The Lady Be Good Stained Glass Window from the
Wheelus Air Force Base Chapel is now on display at the
National Museum of the United States Air Force.

Suggested Reading and Sources:

• National Museum of the Air Force Link
• Wikipedia, Lady Be Good Link
• Wikipedia, the B-24 Liberator Link
• Lost and Found the Story of the Lady Be Good Link
• The Remains of Lady Be Good Link
• Lady Be Good Link
• Ghost Liberator Link
• Lady Be Good Crashed 1943 Link
• Lady Be Good Website Link
• B-24 Manufacturing Photos Link

Hat tip to Don McCollor for giving me the idea for this post.